Mary Murphy

One Book Steamboat ~ Film & Discussion: Hey, Boo with the filmmaker

Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - 6:30pm to 8:00pm
  • Library Hall

In 2015, the award-winning documentary Harper Lee: Hey, Boo has been updated to reflect events surrounding Harper Lee and the discovery of Go Set a Watchman. Mary McDonagh Murphy, the filmmaker and author of Scout, Atticus & Boo: A Celebration of To Kill a Mockingbird, was able to read an advance copy of Lee's new novel before updating the film. How and why this discovery of the new novel happened is a mystery unraveled in the new version of the documentary, which includes interviews with prominent figures from Oprah to Anna Quindlen, Tom Brokaw and Wally Lamb talking about how the book has impacted their lives.

Murphy added 40 minutes of new material, including a brief exchange with the author herself, new photos and Lee letters, and the only on-camera interview with Tonja Carter, the lawyer who got the manuscript into the marketplace.  Harper Lee: From Mockingbird to Watchman chronicles the publication of what we now know was Lee’s first attempt at a novel and still explores the enduring power of To Kill a Mockingbird and its impact on the civil rights movement.

See the film and enjoy a Skype conversation and Q&A with the Emmy award-winning filmmaker, Mary McDonagh Murphy.

ABOUT MARY McDONAGH MURPHY
Mary Murphy is an independent film and television writer/producer whose current projects include Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird, and a social history of the board game MONOPOLY. She is also the producer of Cry For Help which aired nationally on PBS in April 2009; Digital Days, narrated by Tom Brokaw, an examination of the Internet’s impact on the newspaper industry (for the Associated Press); and Before Your Eyes: Don’t Take My Husband a CBS News primetime documentary chronicling deportation proceedings against three former members of the Irish Republican Army. Winner of six Emmy awards, Murphy worked for 20 years at CBS where she produced 60 Minutes stories, 48 Hours and Sunday Morning programs. Her writing has appeared in New York magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and other publications. She is a native of Rhode Island, a graduate of Wesleyan University and was a John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University.

This is a featured event in the ONE BOOK STEAMBOAT 2015 community read of Harper Lee's novel, Go Set a Watchman.